A curated timeline
The gathering of Israel
from managed migration and emigrating funds to stakes, missions, and work on both sides of the veil
For much of the nineteenth century, gathering meant literal relocation: converts left homes and nations to build a concentrated society in the American West. Across the twentieth century, conference speakers increasingly located Zion in organized communities abroad and defined gathering through conversion, local stakes, temples, and family history. A parallel strand—the restoration of Jews to their ancestral land—remains visible throughout the transition.
1836December General Conferencefragmentary
Do not gather unprepared
Conference record
The earliest entry is a brake, not a summons: Kirtland leaders tell distant churches to stop sending poor members without support and require advance purchase of land. Gathering already appears as a logistical and ethical problem that must be planned, financed, and governed.
1853October General Conferencecontemporaneous report
Gathering the poor
Brigham Young · President of the Church
Young asks established Utah Saints to replenish the Perpetual Emigrating Fund so poorer converts can cross ocean and plains. He pairs the appeal with criticism of immigrants who prosper after arrival but fail to repay the assistance, making reciprocity part of the gathering system.
1856October General Conferencecontemporaneous report
Handcarts and the rescue on the plains
Franklin D. Richards · Apostle, Quorum of the Twelve
Richards celebrates handcarts as a way to move poor converts, yet the sermon itself says the season is late and warns of snowstorms, cold feet, inadequate clothing, and suffering without immediate help. Its urgent list—mules, wagons, flour, shoes, clothing—reveals the material fragility of mass migration.
1872October General Conferencecontemporaneous report
The duties of the gathered
George Q. Cannon · Member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Cannon describes converts leaving nations and former associations for a shared territorial society, then asks what that concentration is supposed to produce. His answer moves beyond arrival: the gathered people must resist luxury, build cooperative institutions, and avoid reproducing the inequalities they left behind.
1898October General Conferenceauthoritative print
Gathering in the East and West
Anthon H. Lund · Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
Reporting from the Ottoman Empire and Palestine, Lund finds durable branches abroad and observes recent Jewish migration to Jerusalem. He imagines a future gathering place for Latter-day Saints in the Holy Land and speaks of Zion in the East as well as the West, widening the map beyond Utah.
1908October General Conferenceauthoritative print
Zion in Her Gathering Places
Andrew Jenson · Assistant Church Historian
Jenson counts fifty-eight stakes and twenty-one missions, describing branches abroad whose members still commonly emigrate to Zion. At the same time, his language of many stakes and gathering places shows concentration beginning to become a network rather than a single destination.
1936April General Conferenceauthoritative print
What and Where is Zion
Sylvester Q. Cannon · Member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Cannon defines Zion as any place where Church organization, righteousness, and service take root. His counsel that members may establish themselves wherever opportunity and Church community exist is a clear move away from one compulsory geographic center.
1977April General Conferenceverbatim
Come: Let Israel Build Zion
Bruce R. McConkie · Of the Council of the Twelve
McConkie explicitly calls this a period of 'change and realignment': members outside North America are now to remain in their nations and build local stakes. Gathering becomes conversion followed by rooted participation in a national Zion, a policy reversal the talk makes unusually explicit.
1981April General Conferenceverbatim
The Restoration of Israel to the Lands of Their Inheritance
Marion G. Romney · Second Counselor in the First Presidency
Romney preserves the other geographic strand of the doctrine by assembling Book of Mormon prophecies about Jews and other branches of Israel returning to lands of inheritance. The talk links that restoration to coming to a knowledge of Jesus Christ rather than treating migration alone as fulfillment.
2005October General Conferenceverbatim
The Book of Mormon, the Instrument to Gather Scattered Israel
C. Scott Grow · Of the Seventy
Grow presents the Book of Mormon as the gathering's principal instrument and Mexico as evidence of the new model: a poor branch becomes part of a country with two hundred stakes and one million members. The culminating story is conversion into a local church, not departure from the homeland.
2006October General Conferenceverbatim
The Gathering of Scattered Israel
Russell M. Nelson · Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Nelson offers a systematic modern definition: missionary work gathers the living, while family history and temple ordinances gather people on the other side of the veil. He states directly that the choice is not about physical location and names each nation as the gathering place for its own people.
2018October General Conferenceverbatim
Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel
Russell M. Nelson · President of the Church
Addressing the Church's women, Nelson broadens who is commissioned to gather Israel and what participation can look like. His four invitations connect the project to scripture reading, teaching at home, temple attendance, and Relief Society rather than to relocation.
2021April General Conferenceverbatim
You Can Gather Israel!
Ahmad S. Corbitt · First Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency
Corbitt places the gathering in the hands of youth and translates it into ordinary verbs: love, share, invite, set goals, and unite families. The endpoint is global and local at once—Israel gathered in personal circles as well as across the world.